This article has been taken from Agriya blog and Agriya own this blogger.

AngularJS Basics: For Those Who Prefers jQuery

When AngularJS first appeared, it came along as a crap. It looked like many broken pieces which have to be joined together. As this framework for building web applications progressed, it has gathered a lot of followers around the world. An excellent documentation with cool examples was added to make the framework look simple and user-friendly. It performed great in learning trial apps like TodoMVC Project.

However, in case the user has only interacted with jQuery libraries before, it might be difficult for him to master AngularJS fast. It would be unfair to ignore the advantages of using AngularJS:

MVC Done Right

Declarative User Interface

POJO Data Models

Directives as the Way to Add Functionality

Flexible when using Filters

No need to Write Huge Codes

In-place DOM Manipulations

Relevant Service Providers

Context Aware Communication

Prepared Unit Testing

Why AngularJS Will Fail

Despite all of the benefits mentioned above, Angular was never good enough for all sorts of programs and applications. For instance, it would make no reason to ask AngularJS developers to come up with the game or a computationally intensive math program. This framework would not fit your specific problem domain. At the same time, it was very effective for generic web applications, so AngularJS served as a viable framework to build upon for a while.

The basic cause of failure is not the lack of gaming abilities, of course. It is rather the difficulty in usage. First, jQuery was brought into the place with own JS libraries that assisted in coping with mundane commands of JS:

Class look-ups

Selective Elements

Animation

AJAX

jQuery appeared and helped developers with the repetitive operations. That was the first sign that Angular JS will be replaced.

Angular 2 as a Savior

It all lasted until the day Angular 2 was announced to be released. Due to the fact Angular 2 was not expected to be compatible with its first version, a lot of changes arrived. The main question was like if it would be better to go on developing using AngularJS or quickly switch to Angular 2. Sure thing: we don’t have to catch up with the latest versions as soon as they are released,

but in this case, it really makes sense to think about Angular 2 because of the potential Angular JS failure. If the app is small, it might be not that difficult to conduct any changes. But what if we’re talking about a large-scale project? What should AngularJS developers do then?

After collecting valuable feedback around the web, there are few things worth mentioning that might prove the superiority of Angular 2. This one seems more prepared for the current state of web standards as well as its future. Under the future standards, experts usually mean ES6\7, immutability, components, shadow DOM, service workers, mobile compatibility, modules, typescript, etc.

It is true so far that Angular 2 has removed a range of basic features of the previous versions. Well, perhaps the controllers, $scope, directives, and the module definition are gone. Some common things like ng-repeat also look different now.

Top Advantages of Switching to Angular 2

Anyway, these changes are positive as Angular 2 is more ready for the future web requirements. I would not recommend beginning a project on AngularJS today as it may ruin tomorrow. To make you feel more comfortable with choosing Angular 2, let me tell you that Google has already launched a project with this framework. If you are searching for stability, you may turn to react\elm.

When one asks to name the basic advantages of Angular 2, experts recall the following features:

Support for web components

Usage of Typescript

Great performance

General simplicity of the interface.

If you ask me, I would advise Angular 2 for large-scale projects. Yes, it requires more time to study it. Be ready that very little documentation would be available, but that is not something specialists who created this framework cannot solve.

JavaScript vs Typescript

Many people wonder whether Angular 2 would help for Ionic as well as whether Ionic 2 is Javascript or Typescript. These two are interrelated, but one has to mind the nuances.

While AngularJS was all about JavaScript, Angular 2 works with both JS and Typescript. So, it makes sense to compare JavaScript against Typescript as Angular 2 is based on it. Anyway, Angular 2 official website comes along with documentation and articles in Typescript. Also, it is important to state that Angular 2 can be used in Dart. Basically, Ionic 2 supports the same programming languages.

In any case, when you compare Angular JS and Angular 2, focus on the pros and cons of Typescript when thinking of the second one.

TypeScript’s Advantages

It is an improved set of JavaScript. The main pros of TS are the opportunity to combine several excellent further JS characteristics together with the static typing and other TS-based structures, and Typescript will transpile into the target JS profile(s) your target audience expects. You concentrate on utilizing features that TS supports. This is especially useful for long-term projects.

So-called type safety can assist in discovering mistakes that are caused due to the necessity to transpile TS. You can get rid of them at the early stages, within the authoring and compile time, and fight regression problems effectively. This is crucial for maintainability.

Perfect support for inheritance and interfaces allows achieving higher OOP experience to JavaScript, which results into the improved code decoupling and reuse.

The syntax is usually more convenient for C# or Java developers.

AngularJs development company did not have the same opportunities as Angular 2 teams have today. By choosing Angular 2 with its Typescript, you will benefit from its model and tools to get the best experience.

It is fair to admit, however, few of the Typecript’s cons.

TypeScript’s Disadvantages

It is complicated to handle without the knowledge of statically typed or OOP languages. But there is always time to learn.

The importance of applying TS definitions for non-TS libraries can turn a hassle.

You cannot run Typescript directly without a compile stage.

TS is unable to fix what was once broken in JS.

Several tricks in JS can be quite complex to implement, but you can survive without them.

When Should You Choose Angular 2?

Well, some experts offer this table made of simple questions to make the final decision regarding Angular 2.

Is your project small? If it is and in case it is personal, use Angular 2.

If it is, but it’s work, then think about the team size. Does it involve more than 2 employees? If both your colleagues and manager support Angular 2, then you can also select it.

If at least one of the employees has problems with Angular 2, it is better to hold on.

If you’re the entire team, then decide whether you really feel comfortable with the framework.

Be ready that alpha-software like this can ruin some of your drafts, but in case you have mastered it in full, it would be really thankful.

You can always check the progress of Angular 2 over here.

To sum up everything said above, Angular 1 or AngularJS may still be used for small projects and short deadlines. Angular 2 may take more time to explore and get finally done, but the benefits are too obvious to miss the opportunity to switch to it as soon as it is totally ready.